One of the big and clear winners of Google’s arsenal of hardware products is the Chromecast. The small dongle which comes with an equally small price has been anything but small in terms of sales or its ability to adopt a position as a market leader in the streaming world. As a result, each month sees more apps and services taken on a cast-enabled role and expanding the footprint of the unassuming technology. The latest of which now seems to be the classroom.
Google has today announced the introduction of a special use case of cast which is designed to be of particular importance to the education sector. ‘Google Cast for Education’ is designed to offer teachers and students all the benefits of being able to cast content to a single screen, but with education at the heart of it. To take advantage of this specific use of casting, a new Chrome web app is being released and the general idea is that the app will run on the central (teacher’s) terminal which is also connected to a main display or projector. With the app in place on the main terminal, students will have the ability to cast their own screen to the main terminal and as a result, the connected display for the rest of the classroom to see. A solution which means classrooms will be able to make use of Cast functionality without actually having to introduce any new hardware, just the new Chrome web app.
While Google Cast for Education will naturally garner the most headlines, this was not the only new classroom-oriented feature that was announced today. Google also confirmed a number of new tools including a collection of new creative apps for Chromebooks, quizzes in Google Forms and a widening of access to the Expeditions app. Features which when taken together result in quite a large improvement to how students engage with technology. Those interested in finding out more about all of the new tools that were announced today can do so by heading through the source link below. Those interested in specifically finding out more on Google Cast for Education, check out the video below.